Xbox One Beat PS4 On Black Friday, But PS4 Gets Its Own Victory

A new report indicates that Microsoft’s Xbox One outsold Sony’s PS4 on Black Friday, continuing a decent winning streak that marks a return to form for a console that had a pretty troubled launch. An Adobe report lists Xbox One as one of the top 5 selling electronics on Black Friday, next to iPads, Samsung 4K Tvs, Macbook Air and LG TVs. Here’s a statement from Microsoft Corporate Vice President of Xbox Marketing Mike Nichols.

“There was strong demand for Xbox hardware, accessories, games and Xbox Live engagement on Black Friday, based on initial results, with a strong start to the holiday season. In October, Xbox One was the best-selling console in the U.S., U.K. and Australia according to NPD Group and GfK Entertainment. Xbox One has been the best-selling console in the U.S. for the past four months, and in the U.K. and Australia in each of the last two months. Xbox One S is the only console available this year with built-in UHD 4K Blu-ray, 4K video streaming and HDR for video and gaming and it’s available in a variety of bundles for the best value with 500GB, 1TB and 2TB consoles to choose from.”

Winning the biggest US shopping day of the year is an accomplishment, of course, but it should be noted that this is both due to the increasing popularity of Xbox One and the specificity of deals offered on Black Friday. Both consoles had a solid suite of deals, but PS4 now has a slightly more complicated ecosystem than Xbox One. If there had been deals on the brand-new PS4 Pro on Black Friday, I imagine that Sony’s combined machines would have carried things handily. There’s just a little less impetus to buy on that specific day when there’s no deals on the newest console: those had to wait until Cyber Monday. The Adobe report notes that Ps4 is still the top selling console of the season defined as Nov 1 – 24. Overall, it’s looking like a solid shopping season as both of these consoles enter a kind of maturity: prices are down, games are out, and new hardware is on the market.

Nintendo 3DS is not mentioned in the report, but that’s a tough call because the $99 Black Friday edition seemed to sell out in so many places. Adobe lists it among the items most likely to sell out alongside the Mini NES Classic Edition, which is still something of a unicorn in the face of limited supply and overwhelming demand. Pokémon Sun and Pokémon Moon led the pack for video game software, followed by Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare (the report just says “Call of Duty,” but I’m going to go ahead and guess that doesn’t mean Ghosts).

I predict a pretty big year 2016 holiday season for gaming overall: we’ve had some underperforming software and no true standout like 2015′s Fallout 4, but a diverse suite of games and solid prices on current hardware should carry the day.